Windows Vista Sucks

I’ve already mentioned a few times in this blog my distaste for Microsoft’s Windows Vista. Most of the new features are great ideas, but they just don’t work very well. The product was released too early, and we all suffer, because we have to deal with it’s various bugs.

Take the User Account Control (UAC) security feature for example. It’s a great idea – to ensure the person sitting in front of the computer really wants to make an administrative-level change, one which can affect other settings on the computer system-wide, you have to acknowledge the change. That’s what UAC is supposed to do – be the little watchdog that pops-up every so often, asking if you really wanted to do what you just told the computer to do.

Problem is, UAC pops-up for silly little things, which don’t have any affect on system-wide settings too. I’ve seen it open for Microsoft’s own Windows Live MSN Messenger! MSN Messenger in of itself cannot affect your computer – though if you are careless and accept a file from someone you really don’t know, you can get a virus.

UAC is a sound idea, but they didn’t test it enough before releasing it – along with a slew of other Windows Vista features – to the public.

Once again, we the public, the ones paying for the software, become the testers for Microsoft. We should all get a nice big fat cheque for being so nice to Bill Gates.

I have a really good program called Ashampoo Windows Optimizer which will automatically adjust Windows system settings, to avoid annoying bugs like the UAC pop-ups, while ensuring the system is running in top shape.

This program works with Windows Vista – it even has a section devoted to tweaking specific Vista-only features.

I’ve set it to keep UAC on, while disabling those annoying pop-ups. Now, Windows Security Center tells me UAC is off. So I turn it on, then Windows Optimizer tells me UAC is off!

I tried resetting both several times, with numerous reboots in between – each time you turn UAC on or off, you have to reboot your machine. I just kept going in circles!

Do I blame Windows Optimizer or Windows Vista?

Windows Vista – it is just one bad apple. There are lots of fixes and I’ve already installed the Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1, which was supposed to fix a lot of bugs. I hope Service Pack 2 comes out soon, because Microsloth missed a lot of bugs – or maybe they just created a whole bunch of new ones?

Either way, I’m seriously considering “downgrading” to Windows XP. Everyone who bought in – more likely was forced into – purchasing Windows Vista gets a free “downgrade” to Windows XP.

Though that’s a big thing to do – I’d have to re-install all the applications which I use and that takes a lot of time. Last time I did that, I spent 12-hours straight installing software (I use a lot of different programs).

Do I want to spend 12-hours installing software, just to fix Microsloth’s buggy software? Not really, so I probably won’t do that. And there are a few features I do like in Windows Vista – the sidebar is pretty cool, allowing you to run programs in the background that do everything from monitor system resources, to alerting you when someone comes on to your MSN Messenger.

Oh well, I guess I am stuck with Windows Vista – hopefully the next fix will fix without screwing more things up.